The Things We Cannot Say

by Kelly Rimmer

Time has a way of diluting how we remember things, but there are some memories too pure for even the ravages of the years,

To say he is autistic is not accurate—autism is not who he is, it is a part of who he is.

Hatred spreads—it doesn’t burn out with time. Someone needs to stand up and stop it.

Maybe those bits and pieces from our past are important in case they one day need to act as a map to guide her back to the memories she cherishes.

The string of words that burst from his lips was a language I didn’t know, but our traditions were irrelevant in that moment—the depths of his loss transcended every one of our differences.

It started with a small group of people harassing and vandalizing and desecrating, and it ended with trainloads of my countrymen shipped to furnaces and dumped into a river.